2011 Nissan Leaf: One Year On, How Healthy Is The Battery Pack?

It’s now been well over a year since the first 2011 Nissan Leafs were delivered to customers in California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona.

But after one year, how are early Nissan Leafs performing? Are their battery packs still healthy, or have they started to show signs of wear already?

According to anecdotal evidence from popular Nissan Leaf Internet forum MyNissanLeaf, most -- if not all -- Leafs so far are being given a clean bill of health on their first annual service.

That includes their 24 kilowatt-hour battery packs.

As part of Nissan’s annual service schedule for the Leaf, Nissan engineers download each car’s battery history, detailing charging, use and power consumption data.

Nissan then analyzes this information, producing a simple battery report for the customer, detailing overall health of the battery pack.

Split into five sections, the Battery Information Sheet covers remaining battery capacity expressed as a 12 bar graph, along with an five star rating for frequent use of quick charging; frequent charging when battery state of charge is already high; too much electric consumption; and long term parking with a high state of charge.

With first year odometer readings ranging from a few thousand miles to well over 18,000, all -- except one -- Leafs appear to have suffered nothing more than negligible battery degradation, scoring full marks for battery capacity.

That’s hardly surprising however. According to Leaf experts, the first bar of the Leaf capacity gauge represents a battery capacity of between 85 and 100 percent. Losing that first bar would represent a drop in capacity of more than 15 percent.

But even a lesser drop in battery capacity of more than a few percent would equate to a dramatic loss of range, something most Leaf owners aren’t reporting.

In fact, most Leaf owners we talk to say they are able to obtain a similar range from a full charge as they could this time last year.

The only exception appears to be cold weather, with owners in colder states reporting their Leafs exhibit a dramatic drop in range in bad winter weather.

With just over 13500 miles covered in our own 2011 Nissan Leaf, our experiences are similar.